Before Super Bowl, Driver Sold Drugs To Support Family

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Growing up, kids all across America dream of playing in the Super Bowl. Very few of them experience and overcome the things that Green Bay Packers’ receiver Donald Driver did to get there.

“You try to do anything you can to provide for your family,” Driver told USA Today. “I sold [drugs] for a long, long time.”

Jim Corbett, of USA Today, chronicles Driver’s rocky journey from living in a U-haul with his mother, brother and two sisters to playing in the Super Bowl.

Driver will turn 36 on Wednesday, and it’s an age that once may have never been possible. Growing up as a youth in Houston, Driver sold drugs and stole cars with his older brother to help support their homeless single mother and two sisters.

“When I met my wife, Betina, she said, ‘God is testing you. And if you want to be with me, you have to stop.’ That was my turning point,” Driver told Corbett. “I saw a better life for myself, my wife and kids.”

When the Packers take the field on Sunday they’ll be led by Driver, the team’s longest tenured, 12th year veteran. Just as the Packers have had a lot to overcome this season, so has Driver in his life.